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Arthur Rothstein, Russell Lee, John Vachon, Carl Mydans, Dorothea Lange and Theodor Jung have produced photographs which deserve the consideration of all who appreciate art in its richest and fullest meaning. Thanks to the growth of the documentary method, the future of photography in the U.S.A seems very promising.

It is important to bear in mind that "documentary" is an approach rather than an end. Slavish imitation of the style of other workers is meaningless. Photography has suffered from imitation almost more than other arts; various movements have been so blindly followed that the force of the original impetus has been lost. "Pictorialism" had a definite esthetic place so long as it was not practised as an end; the Photo-Secessionists at the turn of the century were genuinely creative. Yet compare the plates of Camera Work with the prize-winners in pictorial salons today! The followers have imitated the form and the technique, but they have omitted the spirit of the original. Just within the last few years we have seen the growth of the "candid" school from the truly amazing unposed portraits of Dr. Erich Salomon in the late twenties to the most casual snapshot by anyone whose pocketbook can afford a miniature camera with an F/2 lens. Dr. Salomon's pictures were correctly described by the editor of a London illustrated paper as "candid," but the majority of similar photographs deserve no such adjective.

And so it is with "documentary." Because the majority of best work has been concerned with the homes and lives of the under-privileged, many pictures of the down-and-out have been made as "documentaries." The decay of man and of his buildings is picturesque; the texture of weathered boards and broken window-panes has always been particularly delightful to photograph. Eighty years ago a critic in the Cosmopolitan Art Journal wrote: "If asked to say what photography has best succeeded in rendering, we should point to everything near and rough." These things, taken for their picturesqueness, may and often do form photographs of great beauty. But unless they are taken with a seriously socioligical purpose, they are  not documentary.

The documentary photographer is not a mere technician. Nor is he an artist for art's sake. His results are often brilliant technically and highly artistic, but primarily they are pictorial reports. First and foremost he is a visualizer. He puts into pictures what he knows about, and what he thinks of, the subject before his camera. Before going on an assignment he carefully studies the situation which he is to visualize. He reads history and related subjects. He examines existing pictorial material for its negative and positive value--to determine what must be re-visualized in terms of his approach to the assignment, and what has not been visualized.

But he will not photograph dispassionately; he will not simply illustrate his library notes. He will put into his camera studies something of the emotion which he feels toward the problem, for he realizes that this is the most effective way to teach the public he is addressing. After all, is not this the root-meaning of the word "document" (docere, "to teach")? For this reason his pictures will have a different, and more vital, quality than those of a mere technician. They will even be better than those of a cameraman working under the direction of a sociologist, because he understands his medium thoroughly, and is able to take advantage of its potentialities while respecting its limitations. Furthermore he is able to react to a given situation with amazing spontaneity.

Edward Weston, in his admirable little booklet Photography in the "Enjoy Your Museum" series has said: "In the application of camera principles, thought and action so nearly coincide that the conception of an idea and its execution can be almost simultaneous. The previsioned image, as seen through the camera, is perpetuated at the moment of clearest understanding, of most intense emotional response." This is precisely the method of working which has produced the most penetrating photo-documents. We see this theory in practice in Margaret Bourke-White's You Have Seen Their Faces in the technical section of which she describes the way she made these excellent pictures: "Flash bulbs provide the best means I know, under poor light conditions, of letting your subject talk away until just that expression which you wish to capture crosses his face. Sometimes I would set up the camera in a corner of the room, sit some distance away from it with a remote control in my hand, and watch our people while Mr. Caldwell talked with them. It might be an hour before their faces or gestures gave us what we were trying to express, but the instant it occurred the scene was imprisoned on a sheet of film before they knew what had happened." 

Technically, the documentary photographer is a purist, but he does not limit himself to any one procedure. Cameras of all sizes and types have been used to make photo-documents. Ideally the most suitable camera for the particular job is chosen, be it a miniature with film hardly bigger than a postage stamp, or a bulky view camera taking eight by ten inch cut film. If there is any camera which may be called universal for normal documentary work, it would be a hand-camera for cut film

HOUSEWORK ON ARTIFICIAL FLOWERS, NEW YORK 8 P.M,
(1911) BY LEWIS W. HINE. COURTESY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER
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